saturnine

1. 1.

   bitter or scornful

   “the face was saturnine and swarthy, and the sensual lips...twisted with disdain”

   Similarsarcastic
2. 2.

   showing a brooding ill humor

   “a dark scowl”

   “the proverbially dour New England Puritan”

   “a glum, hopeless shrug”

   “he sat in moody silence”

   “a morose and unsociable manner”

   “a saturnine, almost misanthropic young genius”

   “a sour temper”

   “a sullen crowd”

   Synonymsdarkdourgloweringglummoodymorosesoursullen

   Similarill-natured

Questions about saturnine

What does saturnine mean?

saturnine means "bitter or scornful". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in saturnine?

saturnine has 3 syllables: sa-tur-nine. The stress falls on "sa".

What is another word for saturnine?

Close synonyms include dark, dour, glowering, glum, moody. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is saturnine a common word?

saturnine is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.